INDIA 


After the War—In India 


After 
The 
| War 


Series 


The Board of Foreign Missions 
of the 
| Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. 


156 Fifth Avenue, New York City 


AFTER THE WAR —IN INDIA 


India was singularly peaceful during the 
whole period of the war. She joined heart- 
ily with Great Britain in the common effort 
against the enemy, sending forth from her 
shores about one million men, and providing 
a war loan of over $500,000,000. It is true, 


revolutionary societies were still at work in 


the dark, but the Criminal Investigation 
Department of Government was alert. In 
general a good spirit prevailed, which was 
greatly increased by the _ parliamentary 
proclamation of August 20, 1917, announcing 
“responsible government,” that is, Home 
Rule for India, as a goal to be gradually 
realized. Soon the Montague-Chelmsford 
scheme was published, which awakened 
throughout the country a very warm debate. 
The great body of Moderates appreciated 
the scheme and proposed only amendments 
here and there. The Extremists, however, 
rejected the plan as utterly unsuitable, 
claiming not only that India is already fit 
for complete self-rule, but also that she 
should herself frame the terms of her own 
government. 


In the meantime the Rowlatt Committee 
had been appointed to make a thorough in- 
vestigation of the revolutionary activities 
during the last twenty-five years, and to 
suggest suitable legislation to enable Gov- 
ernment more adequately to cope with such 
activities. On the basis of the Rowlatt 
Committee’s report, an act entitled, “The 
Anarchical and Revolutionary and Crimes 
Act of 1919,” was passed. There was very 
strong opposition to the Act on the part 
of the Indian members of the Imperial 
Legislative Council, whether Moderates or 
Extremists. 

The Act was passed, and then behold! 
Mr. M. K. Gandhi, an Indian patriot of 
high character, headed the opposition. 


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4) 


There had been formed the Satyagraha 
movement, a kind of Indian “Solemn League 
and Covenant.” The covenanters took a 
pledge of which the following is the gist: 
“We solemnly affirm that in the event of 
these Bills becoming law, and until they 
are withdrawn, we will refuse civilly to 
obey these laws; and we further affirm that 
in this struggle we will faithfully follow 
truth (hence the name Satyagraha—‘truth- 
acceptance’) and refrain from violence to 
life, person and property.” In an address 
at Bombay on the 15th of March, Mr. Gand- 
‘hi said: “The pledge is no small thing. It 
means a change of heart. It is an attempt 
to introduce the religious spirit into poli- 
tics. We must no longer believe in the 
doctrine of tit for tat. We must not meet 
hatred by hatred, violence by violence, evil 
by evil, but we have to make a persistent 
effort to return good for evil.” The irony 
of the situation is that in following the 
leadership of a man holding such senti- 
ments, worse disturbances have taken place 
in India than at any time since the Mutiny 
of 1857. 


April 6, 1919, was proclaimed a day of 
“passive resistance,” to be spent in fasting, 
processions and prayer. In most places 
throughout India Mr. Gandhi’s program was 
peacefully carried out. Had the Indian 
people all been of the type and character 
of Mr. Gandhi, there would have been no 
disturbance, but only a protest against the 
Bill, of the nature partly of a “strike” and 
partly of a religious ceremonial. Mr. Gand- 
hi had not sufficiently considered the ex- 
istence of a baser element in the population 
and the general illiteracy and religious in- 
flammability of the people. 


It was in the Punjab, the land of fighters, 
that the worst outbreaks took place—at 
Delhi, Amritsar, Kasur, Gujranwala, Lahore. 


o 


At Delhi the clash came almost by acci- 
dent. A Hindu at the railway station was 
not fasting the 3lst of March (Satyagraha 
Day), but was selling sweetmeats. So, 
quite after the style of strikers, a band went 
to dissuade him from work, peaceably if 
possible, but at any rate to dissuade him. 
He refused, and the station staff supported 
him. There was a clash between the mob 
and the police, which developed into a dan- 
gerous riot. Similar disturbances occurred 
in many other places. 


From a letter dated Lahore, April 25th, 
recently received from Dr. J. C. R. Ewing, 
C.LE., Secretary of the Council of the 
American Presbyterian Missions in India, 
the following very graphic statement is 
quoted: 


“In Lahore things passed off with a fair 
degree of quietness, but the crowd was 
refused permission to march through the 
Civil Station beyond the Commercial 
Buildings. Following this, Mr. Gandhi 
was stopped in his progress toward Del- 
hi and sent back to Bombay, and the 
news of his arrest created great excite- 
ment. On that day a terrible outbreak 
took place in Amritsar, where four Eu- 
ropeans were killed and a number of 
persons very roughly used, including a 
missionary lady of the C. M. S. Before 
order could be restored there, very severe 
action was taken by the military. 

“On the 10th of April a huge proces- 
sion was formed and came out from La- 
hore City, made up of two classes of 
people: first, those who were largely 
bent still upon passive resistance; and, 
second, by a great mass who had un- 
questionably allied themselves to the 
crowd for sinister purposes. This mob 
was stopped between the Forman Col- 
lege and the Chief Court, and a number 


4 


of persons were shot. Almost simultan- 
eously with this, there was a serious 
outbreak at Kasur, where two soldiers 
were pulled from a train, one of whom 
was killed and the other so seriously in- 
jured that he died. An Englishman and 
his wife were saved only by special 
heroism on the part of an old student 
of Forman College. 


On May 22nd Dr. Ewing writes again: 


“Had anyone told me two months ago 
that conditions, such as existed in the 
Punjab from April 6th to April 20th, 
could possibly ever be found in that 
Province, I would have ridiculed the 
idea. In fact, I believe that the great 
majority of Indian people were just as 
much surprised as were Europeans and 
Americans. A fine old Sikh officer put 
the matter to me in this way as I traveled 
with him on the train: ‘We in the Pun- 
jab did great things in the war and ex- 
pected something tangible in the way of 
reward for patriotism. Instead of that 
we were told that Government had en- 
acted a Bill according to which (1) no 
company of more than four in number 
could ever assemble, or if so, the Police 
would have full authority to shoot them 
down; (2) no wedding or funeral could 
take place without an initial payment of 
Rs. 5 tax to Government, and then in the 
presence of not more than 4 people; (3) 
the farmer would not dare to harvest 
his wheat until a Government representa- 
tive had come and taken away the one- 
half.” The masses of the people hear- 
ing all these things accepted them at the 
mouth of their leaders, and said, not un- 
naturally: ‘It is better to die than to 
live in such conditions.’ ” 


How shall we account for these disturb- 


— 


oO 


ances in the Punjab? While the exciting 
cause was doubtless antagonism to the 
Rowlatt legislation, there were numerous 
predisposing causes which must be taken 
into account in any just view. The Punjab 
furnished during the war about 350,000 
fighting men. Many of these were killed in 
the war or came home wounded. Thus the 
strain of war was felt throughout the whole 
Province. Then there was the economic 
difficulty—most serious of all—famine 
prices everywhere, due generally to the war 
and especially to the failure of the rains in 
1918. Pestilence in the form of influenza 
struck India with frightful force, and ac- 
counted for about 6,000,000 deaths in the 
whole of India. Thus war, famine and pes- 
tilence all combined to work havoc, and the 
natural result of the suffering and priva- 
tions involved was a somewhat nervous and 
suspicious temper. It is easy to be “agin 
the Government” when things are not going 
well. Then is when the agitator has his 
chance. When the situation was already 
somewhat abnormal, the agitation over the 
Rowlatt Bill began. It was the Rowlatt 
Bill, not in isolation, but set in a context 
of attending circumstances, which may be 
fairly regarded as the cause of the out- 
break. 


We must remember, too, that the last 
few months after the close of the war have 
witnessed unrest and disturbances in many 
parts of the world—bomb-throwing here in 
America on the part of the “Reds,” riots in 
Egypt, unrest in Chosen, the Sinn Feiner 
agitation in Ireland, and the Bolsheviki ac- 
tivities in Russia. The Peace Conference 
has suggested from time to time pregnant 
thoughts, such as “the rights of subject 
peoples,” “the rights of small nations,” “the 
principle of self-determination,” etc. In 
such a world atmosphere as this, it would 


6 


have been altogether strange if India had 
not been affected. The days are past when 
in Kipling’s phrase India “heard the legions 
thundering by, and then plunged to sleep 
again.” She is now sensitive to all the cur- 
rents of the world’s activities and the 
world’s thought. 


Quite likely the outburst in the Punjab 
will clear the air and prepare the way for 
a steady constitutional growth in the di- 
rection of “responsible government.” It 
may be that the very announcement of the 
20th of August, 1917, in which the policy 
of Parliament was declared to be the grad- 
ual realization of responsible government 
for India, was interpreted by many Indians 
as a sign of weakness. Government has 
corrected any such wrong impression by 
her stern treatment of the recent rioters. 


A significant change of allegiance may be 
mentioned as prophetic, possibly, of a new 
attitude toward the British Empire. For 
the last ten years or more Har Dayal, M.A., 
has been practically the head of the revo- 
lutionary movement against British rule in 
India. In letters written recently to “India” 
and the “New Statesman” (Pioneer, April 
27th and 30th), he announces his change of 
attitude. He writes: “I have now formally 
severed my connection with the Indian 
revolutionists on the Continent. I am happy 
to be in a position to work as a free, honest 
man and a loyal British subject again” 
(January 31, 1919). The reasons for this 
change are given as follows: “I now be- 
lieve that the consolidation of the British 
Empire in the East is necessary to the best 
interests of the people of India, Burma, 
Egypt and Mesopotamia. The break up of 
| the British Empire in Asia would lead only 
to a change of masters of the people of 
| India and Egypt. British and French im- 
perialism in its worst form is a thousand 


we 


( 


times preferable to German or Japanese im- 
perialism.” Har Dayal spent two years 
(1915-1916) in Berlin. Doubtless during this 
time he was compelled to picture India un- 
der Prussian rule asa grim possibility. So 
he closes one of the articles with the words: 
“Let us not jump out of the frying pan of 
British imperialism into the fire of—who 
knows what.” 

The recent riots’in India have undoubt- 
edly been more serious than any occurrences 
since the Mutiny of 1857. The air, we may 
hope, has been cleared by the explosion. 
We may count with some confidence on a 
steady constitutional progress toward the 
goal of “responsible government,” steady 
progress in industrial development (so 
sorely needed), and rapid progress in the 
Christianization of India. India is now, as 
perhaps never before, in the melting pot. 
She needs sympathy, comradeship, and sac- 
rificial service. Probably there will be a 
new era of Christian progress in India, very 
much as there was in China after the Boxer 
movement. At such a time as this the 
Christian college is invaluable as a means 
of preparing a wise and sane leadership for 
India. Says Rev. E. D. Lucas, M.A., Prin- 
cipal of the Forman Christian College, La- 
hore: “The need for strong missionary col- 
leges to influence and guide these impres- 
sionable students was never greater than 
to-day.” It is a time then to devise large 
things. The Christian Church in India and 
Christian missions from abroad have a stu- 
pendous work to do in helping morally and 
spiritually to prepare the Indian people for 
the task of self-government within the 
British Empire, which work can be fully 
accomplished only as they are prepared for 
citizenship within the Kingdom of God. 

H. D. GRISWOLD, 


Lahore. 
Sept., 1919 Form 2674 | 


